The industrial sector is extremely developed in Zarqa (Jordan) where it represents more than half of the national industry size. Actually the petroleum refinery Jordan, the Hussein Thermal station’s processing centers, and a free zone called the Industrial Zone because it includes many factories are all located in this governorate. In this context, the Jordan Forum for Business and Professional Women - JFBPW is developing a study on the conditions of female workers in Zaqa’s factories in relation to the gender pay gap, gender discrimination and harassment at work and women’s access to top-level positions.

The study is being developed through distributing questionnaires to the workers, through interviewing administrators and staff workers and debating with the factories’ owners, local authorities and other relevant actors, such as Zarqa governorate, the Chamber of Industry and the Directorate of Labor. The JFBPW organized meetings, discussions and visits to factories in Zarqa in order to collect data on the women working in factories, their problems and how gender equality could be better integrated in the factories.

The JFBPW was selected following a call for proposals promoted by the Foundation in 2016, to coordinate a local cluster of gender equality actors© in 2017. Its mission is to get the gender equality actors of a specific territory (Zarqa) involved in improving women’s situation in the factories, through consultations and exchange of experiences. As a result, the JFBPW will produce a diagnosis of the situation that will be published in the platform’s Documentation Center and widely disseminated across the Euro-Mediterranean region. The JBPW will also design a collaborative and replicable field project aimed at strengthening gender equality in the factories, which they will execute later with the support of the Foundation.

The JFBPW action corresponds to the pilot mobilization actions for 2016 (Cycle 2). It is framed within the Axis 1 “Strengthening the capacities of actors working for gender equality” of the project "Women of the Future in the Mediterranean" funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development (MAEDI). 

For more information about local clusters of gender equality actors set up by the Foundation, click here.